Proposed DanielMD License for Review.

Tue Aug 28 21:46:46 UTC 2001

Please post either to list or to me.  I don't care to be cc'd on list
mail.

Previously posted off-list to Daniel.

on Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 10:05:21PM +0100, Daniel MD (IM-Thinking at clix.pt) wrote:
> At 13:23 28-08-2001 -0700, you wrote:
> >on Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 01:08:14PM +0100, Daniel MD (im-thinking at clix.pt) 
> >wrote:
> > > After i read your comment's (mailing list members) and my post again,
> > > i realized that i was trying to oblige people to do something that is
> > > suppose to flourish naturally. If the program is used and becomes
> > > popular, people will want their names in the developers page and will
> > > add themselfs to the mailing list, a community will be created its the
> > > logic evolutionary step.
> > >
> > > In Resume what i want is this, I created the program, and want to make
> >      ^^^^^^
> >What do you mean by "resume"?
> >
> >I take it English is not your first toungue.
> 
> A summary: a resumé of the facts of the case. - From Dictionary.com,
> and no it is not i apologize for any syntax errors. I write in 5 languages 
> (one of the advantages/disadvantages of being European) and sometimes i 
> confuse certain words, but resume, means the same thing in English, i have 
> checked it in Dictionary.com, in Portuguese we say "resumo", and many other 
> languages follow the same guideline since, they are mostly based in Latin.

"Summary" or "In sum" would be clearer phrasing.

I speak a smattering of about four languages (English, German
(conversational), French and Spanish (very marginal)), which gets me by
fairly well.  Actually managed to get around in Montreal this summer,
did pretty well visiting Germany a few years back.

> > > What i DON'T want, is to have 100 completely incompatible
> > > distributions that will retard the development and evolution of the
> > > code, and latter will lead to the hard task of standardization like in
> > > the case of the Linux OS undergoing right now
> > > (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6445478.html).
> >
> >See Sun's Java history WRT this point.
> >
> >It's been argued by many (self included) that the ability to fork code,
> >compatibly or otherwise, is a major benefit of the free software
> >process.
> 
> Fork code is one of the worst things that happened to the BSD
> community in my opinion, and the efforts of the Free Standards Group,
> is the prove that sooner or latter standardization becomes a
> necessity, i wish to avoid that necessity, by providing standard ways
> of creating new processes.

The argument here is that the GPL allows for two things:

  - Forks can happen.

  - Forked variants are always compatible, from a licensing standpoint.
    There's no inherent legal barrier to re-merging forked code.

    The result is that forking in GPLd projects is rare, and
    reconcilliation has been known to happen.  The Alan Cox (ac) Linux
    kernel series is a persistant, but narrow, fork of Linus's own
    development.  emacs/xemacs is probably the most significant
    persistant fork.  Many window managers are forks of initial
    development:  twm begat fvwm bgat fvwm2 begat WindowMaker, E, and a
    slew of others.

    Merges have occured.  The gcc/egcs fork was resolved in 1999,
    probably one of the highest profile merges.

    http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/2001-June/001093.html 

The conventional wisdom is that forks are expensive, free software
builds on network (aka Metcalfe) effects, which grow with the square of
the nodes, and profit motives are weak.  Hence, forks are rare, unless
driven by compelling rationales:  divergent goals, project management
frictions.  There's a substantial literature on this topic.

> > > Resume: You can Hack the Code, and Create your Distribution, but First
> > > you have to send a RFC to (the malling list ) with the hacked code,
> > > so that (the development team ) has the opportunity to put it the
> > > Official Distribution, if it's in the official distribution, there
> > > will be no need to create more distributions, and Standardization will
> > > not be a problem.  Resuming even more: Hack IT, Send IT For Comment,
> > > Approved and Polished for standardization issues (included in the
> > > Official Distribution), Not Approved (you can create your own Hacked
> > > Distribution).
> >
> >I'd drop this whole concept.  Rather, explore the concepts of integrity
> >and/or trademark management as espoused by Perl (Artistic License),
> >the Apache Project (Apache License -- BSD derived), or the Linux kernel
> >(GPL plus a trademark held by Linus Torvalds, managed by Linux
> >International).
> 
> But this is the same concept that lies under the linux kernel, apache and 
> MIT license. :-?

It's a tacit, implied, concept.  There's no formal requirement for
notification, there *is* some control over integrity-of-concept and use
of marks.

> > > I DON'T Think that software can be more free that THIS, without
> > > compromising development evolution and standardization.
> >
> >Talk to Sun, and/or study the Java/SCSL debates.
> >
> >I suspect it's premature to start discussing specific language until
> >you've clarified (internally and externally) your goals and their
> >implications.
> 
> Isn't that what i just did ? My goal Release Free Code, be able to
> maintain a Official Distribution, and enable others to create their
> distributions, but all with standard processes so that they are all
> compatible.

I don't think your issues are yet resolved.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>          http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?             There is no K5 cabal
  http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/               http://www.kuro5hin.org
   Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA!    http://www.freesklyarov.org
Geek for Hire                        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 232 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20010828/20114a22/attachment.sig>